New Delhi, January 2 – The size of your waist could be proportional to the year you were born in as the findings of a research state that a person’s birth year can influence their risk to obesity.
According to the findings of a research, a person’s birth year can influence their risk to obesity. The study appeared in the journal PNAS Early Edition. The findings suggest that people born after 1942 have a higher chance of being affected by a variant to a gene linked to obesity risk than those born before 1942.
The researchers used data gathered between 1971 and 2008, where participants ranged in age from 27 to 63. According to the lead author of the study, James Niels Rosenquist of Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH),
“We found that the correlation between the best known obesity-associated gene variant and body mass index increased significantly as the year of birth of participants increased”.
The findings emphasise the effect of broad environmental changes to increase in obesity in recent times. The research studies the relationship between participants’ body mass index (BMI), as measured eight times during the study period, and the FTO gene variants they had inherited.
It was observed that there was no correlation between the obesity-risk variant and BMI for those born before 1942 while in participants born after 1942 the correlation was twice as strong as reported previously.
The authors also believe that factors such as increased reliance on technology rather than physical labour and the availability of high-calorie processed foods post World War II have contributed to the environmental effects of obesity.
-INDIA TODAY
